Last week, Laura Rozen at the Politico gave space to an anonymous Obama administration official to smear Dennis Ross, the White House’s Middle East strategist. Ross’s grave offense, apparently, was to evince some understanding of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s position, which also happens to be the mainstream Israeli position, that Israel has a legitimate right to construct new housing in Jerusalem. That earned Ross the smear that he “seems to be far more sensitive to Netanyahu’s coalition politics than to U.S. interests,” a crude implication of dual loyalties and a classic anti-Semitic slander. Now Harvard professor Stephen Walt has emerged to defend the charge under the guise of rejecting it.

Walt, it will be recalled, is co-author of The Israel Lobby, and thus an unlikely voice to come to the defense of someone who shows any empathy for Israel’s position. Indeed, although Walt curiously does not mention it, that book counted Ross as a prominent member of “the Israel lobby” — a term with ominously dark connotations — because he has the temerity to believe, as the authors put it, that the United States should support Israel even when the two countries disagree. (Presumably the “realist” position, which Walt is said to represent, would be that the United States should break all support for countries with which it fails on occasion to see eye to eye.) And sure enough, after some pro-forma hand-wringing about anti-Semitism by which he seems untroubled in other contexts and a few banalities about the nature of political attachments, Walt comes to the conclusion that the real problem with the dual loyalty smear, at least in Ross’s case, is the phrasing. He suggests that it should be called a more sanitary-sounding “conflict of interest.”

Walt no doubt imagines this to be the pragmatic position. He is as usual mistaken. For one thing, what is the conflict of interest in Ross’s case? That he shows some appreciation of Israeli public opinion and understands Israeli domestic politics? Note that Ross has not come out and said that the United States should accept Israel’s position on Jerusalem, which would be eminently reasonable counsel. He has only advised the administration to show more understanding of Israel’s position on that issue. The only way this could be interpreted as a “conflict of interest” is if one believes, as Walt apparently does, that any willingness to listen seriously to Israeli concerns represents the elevation of Israeli interests over American ones. This in fact happens to be an extreme position.

12 Comments, 11 Threads

1.
Ken Besig Israel

As an Israeli Jew who just barely managed to survive the Oslo Accords, which Dennis Ross personally and officially helped to draft and inflict on Israel, I deeply loathe and despise him as the Left wing tool of the Arabs and the State Department he truly is. His involvement as a representative of the American government in the creation of these truly awful Accords cannot be forgiven or forgotten or minimized. Dennis Ross cheerleaded the Olso Accords and his personal and official influence was instrumental in convincing that falling down drunk Yitzchak Rabin to approve the Accordsis. Thus Dennis Ross is personally responsible for every single Israeli Jew murdered or maimed by the Arafat PLO terrorists he and the Israeli government brought into Israel, who armed them, trained them, financed them, gave them diplomatic and political support, and rationalized the five year terror war that the Palestinians waged on innocent Israeli civilians. There is nothing, nothing at all, too extreme that can be said to describe the iniquity, bad judgement, and personal guilt of Dennis Ross in the murder of thousands of innocent Israeli Jews, and the maiming of tens of thousands of others. Dennis Ross, who is Jewish, also happens to be one of the worst criminals in history against the Jewish People we have had the misfortune to experience, with luck we will not see his kind again.

The issue of dual loyalty will never be dealt with successfully by Jews or anti-Semites. The discussion of values is out of style in the East and the West, except at the level of mouthing that America and Israel share democratic, social, economic, etc. values. What are those values? How are they expressed in each country? What are the consequences of expressing those values?

An example: “Democracy” in America is represented by the two-party system but wheeling and dealing within those parties is anything but democratic. In Israel, there are a large number of parties, including three separate Arab parties. Wheeling and dealing, not democratic in any sense of the word, is the hallmark of the Israeli governmental system. The press and mass media in each country has divided itself along party lines, but at least all opinions are expressed. It would seem, then, that “interests” play the key role in all governmental interactions in both countries. What distinguishes them from “non-democratic” states is that both eschew violence in the face of opposition to their dearly held points of view. Both Israel and the US do not shoot their reporters for uncovering messes like in Russia or maintain a government-approved press while squashing the opposition as in Venezuela and Cuba. In other words, both countries allow for self-correction. It is the ability to self-correct through elections or new compromises or consideration of new information that characterizes “democracies.” Support of dictatorships, as in Mr. Obama’s case, looks like a conflict of interest with American democratic values, as is Mr. Walt’s position on throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Their “realism” is the true slippery slope to dictatorship. On the whole Americas and Israels wish to avoid that slippery slope so as to maintain the ability to self-correct over time.

Bill Clinton may have meant well—but his childishly naïve administration is ultimately responsible for the murders of many Israeli Jews. Far too much emphasis is often placed on good intentions. This attitude is absurd. What will be the final results? That is ultimately the question that must not be avoided. Dennis Ross evidently places enormous importance on being considered sophisticated and enlightened. He has even been a professor at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. What more do you need to know? An overly optimistic view of human nature pervades the Ivy League schools. It almost always indicates someone who does not have their act together.

” Ich bin ein Berliner. ” When President Kennedy uttered those famous words on June 26, 1963 was he accused of dual loyalty? No. He was praised for his outreach and sensitivity. Of course he was not a Jew and he was not speaking about Israel. President Obamas supporters frequently compare him to JFK. No doubt the press, and those who are attacking Ross, need a history lesson. American Jews who support Israel should proudly and without reservation remind their detractors that they are following in the footsteps of JFK. Then tell those ninnies to get lost!

It would be ironic or maybe pathetic for Obama’s minions to spread the dual loyalty accusation, while they themselves constantly show disloyalty, even enmity, to the US and its Constitution. Obama’s oath of office was his first lie as President.

Bob Miller @ #5: Spot-on, spot-on!! As for Dennis Ross, I wonder why he stays with this Administration. I think the fact that someone in the Obama Administration even raised this ugly canard about him should have prompted him to leave it. Has he no pride? Also, I find it odd that accusations of dual-loyatly are never raised against Muslims, as in the Muslim psychiatrist at Ft. Hood who managed to kill 13 Americans in a jihad for Allah and Mohammed. Finally, Jews continue to be in denial about this Administration. While the Administration has not literally mouthed what James Baker expressed in regard to the Jews in 1992, its deeds and actions have spoken just as loudly.

Ahm. I am curious how Walt would react if people start accusing Obama of “conflict of interests” – we all know that Obama’s father and step-father were moslems, that Obama spent considerable time in Indonesian moslem schools.

“But when an individual’s own activities or statements give independent evidence of strong attachment to a particular foreign country, is it a good idea to give them an influential role in shaping U.S. policy towards that country?”

Can’t this be used as a reason to impeach Obama?

BTW, most people in the State Department are arabists – does not it mean they should be fired? And we also know that many liberals are unusually critical about Israel (more so than any other country), even though Israel is one of the most free and democratic countries. Does it mean that strong bias against particular country is a reason to be kept away from foreign policy?

Accusing Dennis Ross of being a greater criminal than Israel’s elected government is indeed ridiculous. Israel walked into the Oslo accords with eyes wide open willing to pay the price of terror in order to mitigate the threat that Arabs deliberately shorn of Jordanian and Egyptian citizenship might claim Israeli citizenship, thus upending the Israeli demography. One lesson that can be drawn from this dual-loyalty issue is that Anti-semitism is alive and well, the Dreyfus trial is still on, and that in the end Hertzl was right, Jews need to come home. The other lesson is that as long as Arabs possess the bigger economic stick, they will keep driving the anti-semitic bus, disguised as the anti-israel bus. As natural allies the US and Israel should unite to work on one project: making oil, and therfore oil-derived economic power, valueless. In this the Obama administration is actually making great contributions by investing big-time in electric vehicles and batteries, which will make oil-burning a supefluity.

Yes, the Israeli government under the criminal misleadership of the drunken foul mouthed Yitzchak Rabin is the guilty party in Olso Accords catastrophe, Beilin and Peres certainly played their parts, but as an active opponent of Oslo before, during, and after, I would be the last to minimize or whitewash Rabin’s guilt. But Dennis Ross is a special case, in the sense that he along with Martin Indyk, another loathesome and despicable creature, were the American point men, who special pressures and positions helped make the Oslo Accords disaster inevitable and whose rationalizations, excuses, and justifications helped make the Olso Terror War even more murderous and destructive than it should have been.
Rabin paid for his folly in a most appropriate way; Dennis Ross is still doing harm to Israel.

Ross’s history is that of a leftwing tool and useful idiot and Stephen Walt is a certified anti-Semitic bigot and compulsive Israel basher among other things. Hence, the Obama regime apparently is so weighted down with anti-Semitic bigots and Israel bashers that even a leftwing tool and useful idiot like Ross isn’t sufficiently anti-Israel and pro-jihad enough to help shape Israeli policy, and we are supposed to believe that this somehow is a mainstream position and isn’t extreme to the max.

In any event, the jihad against Israel, like all the other both hot and cold stealth jihads the Dar al Islam are also currently pursuing in many other places around the world against non-Muslim kafir infidels besides just the jihad in Israel, is permanent. Indeed, the Dar al Islam cannot make peace with Israel without betraying Islam, which would amount to committing a universal collective act of blasphemy, and the penalty for blasphemy per Sharia is death. Thus, for the international ummah to universally make peace with Israel, they would all have to be collectively executed subsequently per Sharia.

Therefore, there is no peace possible between Israel and the so-called Palestinians, which are in fact the Dar al Islam’s proxies. Thus, the peace process is little more than a stealth ploy employed by the Dar al Islam in conjunction with leftwing tools and useful idiots like Dennis Ross to weaken Israel until the final assault can come.

ALAS, SO FEW RESPONSES TELLS ME SOMETHING. DON’T YA THINK OBAMA AND HILLARY ARE SIMPLY EXTENSIONS OF BILLIE’S POICIES? THEY SAY THE TRUTH WILL SET US FREE BUT I DON’T SEE IT ENDING THE PROBLEM. TWO THINGS ARE IMPORTANT: 1…FREEDOM AND 2…FREEDOM. ISRAEL REPRESENTS IT; HAMAS AND IRAN DON’T. DENNIS ROSS IS IRRELEVANT BUT ME THINKS HIS HEART IS IN THE RIGHT PLACE.